Chang Wen Lai is no stranger to a little risk.
As a former trader, he was used to making big bets on businesses.
I used to work in Barclays as a trader.
It was a very good life.
Maybe too good.
So when he stumbled upon an idea to build a business of his own, he was all in,
even if that meant switching the stock exchange floor for a mattress on his office floor.
That is being desperate because you just didn’t have enough time to go home.
And getting a little imaginative with the truth...
Obviously if I went to a client and said that I have one van
and half the time it’s out of commission,
she would probably tell me to get lost.
So I said ‘No, we have multiple vans.
Don’t worry about it.’
Chang Wen is the co-founder and CEO of Ninja Van, the multi million-dollar express delivery
business that’s become a driving force behind Southeast Asia’s booming e-commerce industry.
The 32-year-old started the company here in Singapore with two friends
back in 2014 and is now the trusted business partner of some of the region’s biggest retailers.
But his original vision would have seen him become their competitor.
Slightly more than five years ago, I was running kind of an e-commerce company, small e-commerce
company, selling online, primarily in Singapore.
And every time we had an online customer, we went ‘wow, that’s really easy to get
a customer, no shop, nothing required.’
But the pain only hit after that when we had to deliver the parcel.
So many issues came up.
I think the entire logistics industry was just not set up for e-commerce at that point in time.
So foolishly I said, “Why don’t we open a logistics company to solve this problem?
It should be easy, in a year we should be done, and let’s find something else to do.”
So that’s how it started.
Weeks later, Chang Wen and his two co-founders Boxian Tan and Shaun Chong were up and running,
leaving behind stable jobs in finance and engineering to expand their men’s fashion
business, Marcella, and take on deliveries.
In the first year we were running both and we thought this is highly synergistic, to have
a business on one hand generating volume for another business.
But the more we did it, the more we realized that fashion business wasn’t necessarily our forte.
And if we were to be a very neutral, agnostic provider of logistics services,
ideally you should be neutral.
So we decided let’s focus on a business which we felt could scale a lot better,
and not just in Singapore, but across the region.
So the entrepreneurs pivoted again, shuttering their fashion line and investing their savings
to go all in on their delivery service, which unlike traditional delivery providers,
leverages heavily on technology.
It was a promising gamble.
E-commerce in Southeast Asia is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2025, thanks to rising
internet penetration and an expanding middle class.
But when it came to delivering orders, the region was lagging behind.
According to the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index,
the majority of Southeast Asian nations, with the exception of Singapore,
have a long way to go to meet the infrastructure capabilities
of the most advanced economies.
I would say I knew more about the micro aspects about it than the macro trend when I started it.
I have a problem, I have a business, I'm an e-commerce seller, I know the pain points,
I know how to solve it.
The three friends soon found out they were not the only ones eager for a new and improved
logistics system across Southeast Asia, however.
Indeed, just months after launching in Singapore in 2014,
Ninja Van expanded to Malaysia and Indonesia.
By 2016, it was live in Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.
Today, the company claims to have 100% coverage in its six existing markets
and plans to go live in Brunei later this year.
I think it’s in Luzon, in Philippines.
We have pictures of parcels being delivered by ox cart as well.
Wow, wow.
So you’re really in the most rural parts.
You’re 100% covered.
Yeah, 100%.
Chang Wen says that has everything to do with Ninja Van’s technology, which has enabled
the business to scale quickly and empower its drivers, known as Ninjas, to efficiently
sort and deliver orders – even in the most remote locations.
The less people have to think, the more scalable a business gets,
the more consistent a business gets.
In 2014, Ninja Van was the first logistics company in Singapore to provide real-time
tracking updates. It later harnessed algorithms to optimize route deliveries and save on fuel.
The company has also been able to use its data to hire more drivers during peak shopping
periods such as Singles Day and Black Friday.
Whether it’s in the sorting process, I mean, you can see the sorting center,
it’s all quite automated.
There are portions of the process which is people.
But in those processes you see that the devices they’re using helps them to decide and those
lead to very consistent outcomes.
It hasn’t been all good news for the young founders though.
Ninja Van has faced criticism on social media for shortcomings in its customer service,
which Chang Wen acknowledged.
Our business is never perfect and you never will be. As long as it is a scaled business
and there’s a people element, it will never be perfect.
So what we have learnt is that if you’re at 99% perfection, do you push for 99.5?
Or do you push really hard to make sure that the 1% of errors are handled in a perfect manner?
So that’s where we’re focusing on a lot.
That determination is something that’s caught the eyes of investors, including Facebook
co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who helped fund the company’s international expansion.
Kuo-Yi Lim from Monk’s Hill Ventures was another one of Ninja Van's early supporters.
I sat down with him to learn why.
I first met Chang Wen and the team when they were pitching me Marcella,
and we weren’t so compelled by it.
But in the conversation talking to Chang Wen he shared with us the challenges that he had
and through that conversation he had ideas about how to make it better.
Were there particular characteristics that really stood out?
That made them look like go-getters?
I think so.
I think it’s the right balance between being thoughtful
and at the same time as being biased towards action, right.
You can be thinking too much and doing too little,
or doing too much but not really thinking about it.
Chang Wen is hoping that will stand him in good stead as competition heats up.
Ninja Van is one of a host of logistics firms including Lalamove, GoGoVan and Logivan
to launch over Asia in the last few years, and they show no sign of abating.
In fact, Southeast Asia’s third-party logistics market is expected to grow at an annual rate
of more than 5% over the next five years to be worth $55.7 billion by 2025.
But the Singaporean co-founder says he’s confident he can set his business apart.
He says he’s doing that by directly employing his fleet of 20,000 drivers,
who, unlike the freelancers used by competitors, have a vested
interest in ensuring the business is built to last.
It is not as though one day we have a million parcels and the next we have 10.
There’s a baseload requirement, and the baseload requirement is best served by people
who know they are being taken care of, by people who are experienced in their job,
by people who are tech-enabled, and that’s our approach.
In 2019, Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab invested in Ninja Van and integrated
its delivery services within the Grab app, unlocking a new customer base for the company.
Grab isn’t the only company getting behind the young founders.
In 2018, the business received a record-breaking $87 million series C funding round
from investors including European delivery group DPD.
Ninja Van now claims to have raised over $300 million, which could put it on course to become
one of the region‘s next $1 billion unicorn.
Logistics now is a very hot investment theme.
If you think about what has been done already, it’s just scratching the surface.
A lot of people are going to come online in terms of buying stuff, purchasing more stuff.
And that’s just one demand driver for logistics.
Kuo-Yi says other drivers include healthcare and industrial goods.
That’s going to drive the demand for more sophisticated, more efficient logistics,
and open up the space for new players and incumbents alike to address.
But now that Chang Wen is finding himself on the receiving end of these big bets,
says he’s more determined than ever to make sure his vision succeeds.
That includes carving out a sustainable path to profitability.
We are profitable in some countries, in some we are close.
Which countries would they be?
I think that’s all we will share for now.
We are not growing at all costs.
We are growing in a responsible manner.
We do not believe that growth or a monopolistic market is the end goal.
To me, it’s very clear: Focus on the people, focus on our customers,
and build services around them.
Do all that, you will get profitable.